Energy Efficiency

Abstract

The government energy-saving campaign ‘Helping the Earth Begins at Home’ launched in Autumn 1991 stated that domestic fuel bills could be cut by 20 per cent or more by straightforward changes such as improved insulation and draught-proofing. The campaign stresses the need to reduce carbon dioxide emissions as well as pointing out the possibility of lower bills. This action is an advance of an international agreement on the use of fossil fuels and global warming which is expected to be signed in 1992. Given that demand for electricity is increasing world-wide, particularly in less developed countries, it is possible that the UK and other developed nations will have to reduce consumption of fossil fuels by about 50 per cent over the course of the next thirty to thirty-five years. Reductions in energy consumption of this order are feasible and after the initial pay-back period, saving would have an appreciable affect on individuals’ living standards and companys’ profitability [1]. If there is one theme underlying the increased awareness about environmental issues, it is that our squandering of energy and other resources must end.

Secretaries of State for Environment, Trade and Industry, Health, Education and Science, Scotland, Transport, Energy and Northern Ireland, the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Food and the Secretaries of State for Employment and Wales, This Common Inheritance — Britain’s Environmental Strategy ( London: HMSO, September 1990 ) p. 71.Google Scholar